


Lust

by SilverFountains



Category: Da Vinci's Demons
Genre: Leonardo is wicked, M/M, Sex Toys, Teasing, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 08:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10636431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverFountains/pseuds/SilverFountains
Summary: Happy Birthday to my beloved Delorita who shares her birthday with the genius himself! Hope you enjoy xxx





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [delorita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/delorita/gifts).



Count Riario pushes a few papers aside. He picks up an object that looks somewhere between a sphere and a snuff box, examining it briefly. Leonardo had promised to show him the golden head with his mother's voice now that he had managed to repair it. Because after everything that they had sacrificed - and he knows Leonardo had meant Zita - it would be stupid to give up now. Somehow the man had this gift of convincing him, of talking him round. 

But now that he is here at the artist's studio, the man himself is nowhere to be found. Verrocchio had let him in reluctantly, eyeing him for a while with unconcealed suspicion. “Leonardo has asked if you would wait here for him. He had to go suddenly, but he won't be long,” he had said. 

Normally the count would have scoffed at such insolence. No-one leaves him waiting except the Holy Father. 

No-one except Da Vinci… 

He puts the spherical object back on the long table. Next his eye falls on an embroidered cloth in the corner. He knows it's rude to be going through Leonardo's things when he's supposed to be a visitor here, rather than ransacking the place as he had before their travels. He cannot help his curious nature though, justifying his actions to himself as he walks towards the cloth and pulls it away with the notion that if anything is that secret surely Leonardo would not leave it lying around carelessly. 

It's a curious looking machine. It reminds him a little of the Scorpion that Leonardo had designed to overcome their first trial in the Vault of Heavens with its interlocking mechanism of wheels. But this is much smaller. Roughly the length of his forearm and perhaps the height of a two fists. There are two turn handles that tighten the belts that connect gears. And through the middle runs a small rod with at the end a screwing groove. 

His fingers wrap around the handles, slowly turning them, listening to the gears turning also until he hears a click and cannot turn the handle any more. 

His alert eyes examine the device again, looking for a release mechanism. At the back he finds a cord that he unrolls slowly. It takes hardly any effort to pull the cord and the whole machine springs into life, the gears turning slowly as the centre rod moves back and forth, back and forth,  
back and forth. 

Girolamo stares at it in fascination as the gears roll and the rod keeps moving in that almost hypnotising motion. Until eventually the tension runs out and the movement slows and then ceases.

A weapon? Perhaps it should have a blade at the end? he wonders, although it doesn't look very effective or threatening for that matter. Maybe just a scaled prototype. Or maybe not a weapon at all. Something for the artist perhaps? To help him paint or sculpt? 

He looks around. The rod suggests that there is definitely something missing. Something that should be screwed onto the end. He wants to know what it is so that he can perhaps work out the purpose of the device. He has almost forgotten now that he is waiting for Leonardo da Vinci now, caught up in wanting to solve this mystery before the artist returns. 

He pulls open the drawers in the cabinet on which the device is perched and his fingers feel inside, finding the leather binding of a sketch book underneath. He carefully pulls the book out. The cover is blank as are the first few pages and Girolamo is about to put the book back when he suddenly finds a page with notes. Diagrams at first. A sketch of the device that stands before him. Some mathematical calculations that show the relationship between the size of the gears, the length of the tensioning straps and the speed with which the rod moves. His fingers trace the drawings with equal fascination and frustration as it tells him no more than the device itself already had. It's workings but not its purpose. 

He turns over the page, almost dropping the book in shock as he is greeted with anatomically perfect drawing of the male genitalia from various angles but all in a clearly aroused state. 

A furious blush creeps high up his neck and into his sharp cheeks. He knows he should close this book of sins immediately and put it back into the drawer, pretending he's never laid eyes on it. And yet he cannot tear his eyes away from it, as if the sketchbook is glued to his hands. 

His breath becomes a little shallow. His heartbeat a little faster. And there is the slightest tremble in his hand as he turns over the page with an almost morbid curiosity now. Of course he knows of Pazzi's smear campaign to try and get Da Vinci tried for his unnatural interests. And things said and unsaid between them during their trials and journey had at least never countered those accusations even if he'd only ever born witness to Da Vinci's desire for women. And yet to have the evidence of his sin in his hand still shocks the count. But not in the way he had expected. 

Sweat trickles down his spine as his own anatomy stirs all too similarly to the drawings when he looks at the next page, gasping. A male. On all fours like an animal. And the device… 

His eyes blow as wide as the sphere he had examined earlier. His heart beats high in his throat now and his mouth feels dry as he pants slightly. 

“Girolamo.”

The count drops the book on the floor, sending the pages flying. He considers for just the briefest of moments whether to bend down and pick it up again but decides on a different tactic since he won't be able to hide what he'd seen anyway. “Da Vinci,” he croaks. “I see our trials in the New World have failed to cure your debauchery.”

“As they have failed to teach you that it's rude to go through another man's private things?” Leonardo smirks at the red shine in the count’s cheeks. He cocks his head. “Indeed it seems you have found a new level of wickedness yourself…” he winks. 

“Dare not suggest that I…” Girolamo’s hand shoots towards his dagger but Leonardo laughs.

“Suggest what, count?” he smirks. “That you are curious about my invention? That you wonder how it would feel to be on its receiving end?” He walks over to the cabinet and yanks open the bottom drawer.

Girolamo flushes an impossible shade of pink when the artist throws a handful of phallus shaped items on the table before him in various shapes and sizes and colours and textures. 

“I'm still experimenting with materials,” Leonardo smiles a positively wicked smile as he holds one of the heinous objects up as if he's showing off a piece of art. “It's a fine balance between a pleasure for the eye and the…”

“S-stop,” Girolamo coughs, feeling himself sway as his blood pulses in his temples. 

Leonardo shrugs, pushing the wooden dick casually into Girolamo's hand as he bends himself down to pick up the scattered pages. “Too bad,” he mutters rather loudly. “I could have done with a second opinion on it. And there are few I would trust to give me such honest feedback as I know you would have…” He looks up with a wide smirk on his face and a glint in his eyes. 

Girolamo opens his mouth to protest at this man's disrespect and insult but as always he leaves him speechless. “The head… the golden head…” he stutters, willing that goddamned blush away as hastily puts the wooden phallus on the table, wiping his hands on his tunic. 

Leonardo rises to his feet, neatly shuffling the papers back into the binder. He tries not to look too smug about Riario's obvious embarrassment nor too interested in the clear arousal bulging in the captain general's well fitting trousers. “Of course, the head.” He walks over to the cabinet in the corner and turns the key, opening the doors to reveal the treasure within. He reverently takes out his precious possession, placing it on the table before the count. 

But even as he winds up the mechanism he can see that Riario is distracted, his alert eyes not as focused as they normally are. 

When he's played the mechanical voice of his mother to the count he looks at him questioningly. “So what do you think?”

Girolamo blinks as if Da Vinci has just shook him awake. “I... think it's more riddles,” he meets Da Vinci's gaze, trying to put the pictures that he cannot unsee to the back of his mind. 

“Yes,” Da Vinci shrugs. “But clues too. You know things, Girolamo. Have you ever heard of The Labyrinth? Of the Enemies of Man?”

“The Enemies of Man…” the servant of the Church chews over what he's heard. “The seven cardinal sins... Pride, Greed…”

“Envy, gluttony …” Leonardo pitches in. 

“Wrath, sloth…” 

Riario feels his throat close up as Leonardo grins at him wickedly, waiting full of anticipation to hear him name the seventh sin, the one he had purposefully skipped.

“I should go,” the count chokes, breaking eye contact as he makes for the door. 

“Already?” Leonardo smirks as he follows his former enemy to let him outside. “But what about the Book of Leaves?” he asks.

“I should not have come,” Riario shakes his head, “chasing false idols.” He turns to Da Vinci, crossing his arms. “You would do well to listen to your mother's voice, Leonardo. And stay on the virtuous path.”

Leonardo’s smile only widens. “You'd find me boring if I did,” he winks. 

The count snorts, but doesn't respond. He turns his back on Da Vinci and hastens away from the man who tempts his body and soul like the Devil-incarnate. 

“Oh Girolamo,” he hears the engineer call after him. “The other vice, it's lust.” 

Da Vinci doesn't await a response from the Captain General as he closes the door and turns his attention back to his latest invention. He knows exactly whose name will be on his lips when he comes to try it out.


End file.
